Many people hope to permanently maintain plentiful, natural, and beautiful hairs on heads, regardless of young or old, or men or women. However, people suffer a lot of stresses in the modern society, such as social stresses and stresses concerning personal relationships. Such stresses badly affect hairs on heads, resulting in rapid increase, year by year, in the number of people who suffer from troubles concerning hairs on heads, such as alopecia. In response to such a situation, hair-growing agents have been hitherto developed, including, for example, extracts from galenicals such as Coicis semen, ginkgo, and ginger; vitamin E; alloxazine; and adenosine-3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (c-AMP). Any of these pharmaceuticals is known to have a function to improve the blood flow amount in minute peripheral blood vessels. It is considered that their hair-growing effects also result from such a function.
Among the hair-growing agents having the function as described above, the extracts from galenicals such as Coicis semen, ginkgo, and ginger are also known to have an effect on skin to improve a dermal state by improving the blood flow amount as well.
As described above, it is known for the cosmetic that the improvement in blood flow amount in minute peripheral blood vessels results in preferred effects such that the hair growth is facilitated on skin of head, and the dermal state is improved on skin of body.
However, any of the hair-growing agents described above is not fully sufficient in the hair-growing function. In addition, some of them are not preferable from a viewpoint of safety since adverse side effects such as dermatitis are caused as in the case of so-called 101 which brought about a boom. In general, no hair-growing agent capable of being put to practical use without any problem has been obtained until now. The skin cosmetics also have had their insufficient functions, being not suitable for practical use if they are evaluated also from the viewpoint of safety.
Thus it has been desired to develop a blood flow amount-improving agent which has an excellent function to improve the blood flow amount and has high safety, in order to obtain a cosmetic for hair which is excellent in the hair-growing effect, and a cosmetic for skin which is excellent in the function to improve the dermal state.
On the other hand, it has not been known that steroid derivatives as represented by general formulae (1) and (2) described below have the function to improve the blood flow amount. I n addition, it has not been reported that they are blended with a cosmetic for hair or a cosmetic for skin so that the hair growth is facilitated, or the dermal state is improved.